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Chapter 1: What caused the Blue Origin explosion and how does it affect NASA?
Hi, I'm Jane Lindholm, filling in for Flora and Ira, and you're listening to Science Friday. When Blue Origin's New Glenn spacecraft exploded in an enormous fireball during a ground test a couple of weeks ago, it sent shockwaves not just through the air, but through NASA's timeline for the upcoming Artemis missions.
While there's never a good time for an explosion like that, it comes at an especially bad time for the Jeff Bezos rocket company, which was awarded a slew of NASA contracts just days before the incident to deliver rovers and drones to the moon.
It had also been expected to play a major role in the upcoming Artemis III and IV missions, but that's now up in the air depending on how soon Blue Origin can rebuild its only launch pad. And with NASA's Artemis III crew announcement this week, we have a lot to talk about.
Chapter 2: What role was Blue Origin expected to play in the Artemis missions?
So let's get to it with Ken Chang, a science reporter for The New York Times, where he covers NASA and the solar system, and Brendan Byrne, space reporter for Central Florida Public Media. Ken, Brendan, welcome to Science Friday.
Thanks, Jane.
Thanks.
Brendan, how big a deal was the explosion in terms of NASA's schedule?
Chapter 3: How significant is the explosion for NASA's timeline?
And what was it exactly that Blue Origin was supposed to deliver?
Sure. Yes. So this was a blow to the schedule, as you mentioned. It was a huge, huge event here in Florida, miles away from the launch pad.
Chapter 4: What is the Artemis III mission and what are its goals?
We could see it. We could feel it. You could hear it. And really, this was supposed to be a critical flight of New Glenn, which NASA is going to be relying on Blue Origin to use to get a lot of these landers and all of this equipment that it wants to get to the moon for its moon base. So
Chapter 5: Who are the astronauts selected for the Artemis III crew?
As you mentioned at the start, yeah, this is very bad timing, which certainly could have some impact on the schedule. It's not just the rocket that they lost. It's the launch pad itself. It's the only launch pad that Blue Origin has for New Glenn. And launch pads are almost as complex as the rockets themselves.
Chapter 6: Why are there no women on the Artemis III crew?
Now... Blue Origin came out and said that damage wasn't as bad as they thought, and they are going to be able to get back to flying by the end of this year. NASA seems confident that that will happen and they will get to the bottom of it. But you have to be a little bit skeptical when you saw that big boom in some of the pictures that you see coming back from the pad.
Ken, NASA called Artemis III one of its most complex missions.
Chapter 7: What can we expect from Artemis IV and its mission objectives?
What is the mission?
So when Jared Eisenman sort of revamped the moon program, he added this mission, which was not going to go to the moon. It's going to stay in Earth orbit. Space will have its Starship rocket, and Blue Origin will have its Blue Moon lander. Blue Moon will launch first, then the NASA astronauts in the Orion capsule.
Chapter 8: Why is the U.S. racing to return to the moon before China?
And they're going to rendezvous in Earth orbit, practice docking, and they're going to actually go into the lander and basically show that they can do these things all correctly the first time when they're at the moon. And then... After they're done with Blue Origin, then Starship is going to launch, and they're going to do docking with Starship as well.
So this is complex because you have three different spacecraft and three different mission controls. There will be NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin, which hasn't happened before, really.
It sounds like it's almost like a docking competition.
Well, it almost is a bake-off, right? NASA was trying to decide which lander would be ready for Artemis IV, the first moon landing. And at this point, it looks more likely it will be SpaceX, given all the troubles that Brennan has described that Blue Origin is now facing in recovering from that explosion.
But, you know, it's still— But SpaceX has had explosions, too. I mean, nobody's apparently immune to explosions, right?
No, and this has sort of been overlooked. I mean, SpaceX is actually grounded right now with Starship. They had a mostly successful launch, but the booster crashed when it was trying to come back. And the FAA is requiring SpaceX to investigate and come up with a report so that they understand well enough to make sure that that doesn't come down on people.
So, I mean, in that case, it sounds like nobody's ready. Why doesn't NASA delay things?
Well, they're almost facing an artificial deadline, which is the end of 2028. And they want to get this off the ground while President Trump is still President Trump. And then you start working backwards. And if you have any hope of doing a moon landing in 2028, you have to do Artemis III in 2027.
I see. Well, so assuming that they're moving forward and pushing this pace, Brendan, NASA announced the Artemis III crew. Who's in the crew that is going to go if this goes?
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